Quick look at the World Golf Championships-HSBC Champions

HILTON HEAD, S.C. – We’ve grown accustomed to seeing Brooks Koepka in the mix on Father’s Day with consecutive wins and a solo second at the last three U.S. Opens, respectively. Thanks to the coronavirus, though, America’s national championship won’t be played until September. But the RBC Heritage, first canceled and then resurrected, took those holiday dates, and Koepka put together his best tournament of the season, closing with a 65 on Sunday for a seventh-place finish. Prior to this Father’s Day, though, Koepka, who had a painful stem cell injection to repair a partially torn patella tendon his left knee after last year’s TOUR Championship, hadn’t finished higher than a tie for 32nd at the Charles Schwab Challenge. He ranked 204th in the FedExCup, as a result. The top-10 finish at Harbour Town, though, vaulted Koepka 56 spots to No. 148. The top 125 at the end of the Wyndham Championship in mid-August advance to the FedExCup Playoffs where the winner of the $15 million bonus will be decided. Koepka has made it to the TOUR Championship four of the past five seasons and has yet to miss the Playoffs. In fact, his last top-10 finish prior to Sunday came at East Lake in August when he tied for third. “Obviously, six months off, three with the lockdown and then three on my knee, so, yeah, it feels like it’s been a really long time since I’ve even felt some juices flowing,” Koepka said. “It just felt nice to be in contention again. I feel like I played OK. I putted terrible today.” The RBC Heritage marked the second straight tournament in which Koepka had posted four rounds in the 60s. He played his final 14 holes in 7 under, including two eagles, one of which came when he drove the green at the par-4 ninth. “It wasn’t too bad,” Koepka acknowledged. “I hit shots exactly kind of how I wanted to coming down the stretch, which was nice. Obviously, it’s been an incredibly long time for me to be in contention. It just felt good to be back in the swing of things.” Koepka said he was trying to get to 21 under before ending up three short, and he called the 65 he shot as disappointing a score as he could have had. Webb Simpson won what turned into a shootout with a tournament-record score of 22 under. “It just felt nice to feel something again,” Koepka said. Koepka credited a session with the renowned Butch Harmon, the father of his swing coach Claude Harmon, prior to THE PLAYERS Championship with helping get things back on track. A meeting of his inner circle also bore fruit. “I told them what I wanted to do is get back to what got us there,” said the four-time major champion. “I think sometimes, when you get to the top, you change things a little bit. I laugh at it now because I always say, when I do that, I’m not going to do anything, and I think I tried to play too perfect instead of just being me, just go out and play golf.” The three-month break also enabled Koepka to spend more time with his physical therapist, Derek Samuel, who is based in San Diego. He says his body feels better than it has in years. “A lot of work I’ve done with Derek, with him, just manipulating the knee, the kneecap, it’s been a long road,” Koepka said. “It just feels like I haven’t been healthy for a very long time. My body feels great. I feel like I can really move through the golf ball. The knee feels great. “Finally able to do things I wasn’t able to do for a very, very long time. So, I’m excited, playing good, and I just need to keep it up.” Koepka is entered in this week’s Travelers Championship.

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CROMWELL, Conn. – Give yourself a gold star – heck, two or three gold stars – if you can remember that time from 11 years ago when we had Zack Sucher sharing a golf stage with Andrew Putnam. It was the 33rd U.S. vs. Japan Collegiate Golf Championship at Tokyo Golf Club and while the 37-23 victory that Sucher and Putnam and teammates such as Kevin O’Connell, Lizette Salas and Sydnee Michaels recorded gathered very little fanfare, it served as a launching pad for pro golf careers that have been a series of ups and downs. The most recent upswing? This week’s Travelers Championship where the 32-year-old Sucher – he of the last-minute spot in the field via the sponsor’s invite to a Korn Ferry Tour member – had an eagle and three birdies over his final six holes at TPC River Highlands to shoot a second-round 5-under 65 to push to 11-under 129. That Sucher’s lead was threatened by Putnam, who started his second round in the afternoon with five birdies in seven holes before cooling off, was secondary to this storyline: Where has Zack Sucher been and what is he doing in contention at the Travelers Championship? The smile and Sucher’s answer provided a lot of insight. “First year I can remember in a long time where I’m pain-free and it’s feeling really good. It’s nice to be out here,� said Sucher, who missed the cut in a Korn Ferry Tour stop in Springfield, Ill., and drove here, assuming he had a good chance to get that sponsor’s spot. His gut feeling has played out nicely, in stark contrast to the way his life has gone since he left the Travelers Championship in 2017. He missed the cut, played in an outing, but had had enough of constant pain in his left leg. He knew the knee was an issue, but it turns out “his ankle was a mess,� said his wife, Courtney. Major surgery on the ankle and the knee sidelined Sucher for more than a year and the return to competition has been a mixed bag. In 10 Korn Ferry Tour tournaments Sucher has two top 10s, but in three PGA TOUR starts he’s missed one cut and finished T-35 and T-50. In other words, nothing to make Sucher feel that he was ready to break out at TPC River Highlands, but he’s played plenty of competitive golf to know it’s a landscape that cannot be explained. “The last few years I had on the (Korn Ferry Tour) were a bit of a struggle,� said Sucher, who has a win and 13 other top 10s on that circuit. “And every time I made it here (he’s had PGA TOUR status in 2015 and 2017), it seemed the harder I worked, the more the left leg would hurt.� An Atlanta native who played at the University of Alabama-Birmingham, Sucher gushes about doctors who repaired “two ligaments and a tendon in the ankle� and his knee problems. He even got plantar fasciitis in his right foot, said Courtney, shaking her head, recalling the mishap that occurred when her husband was shooting hoops during recovery. That injury probably wouldn’t surprise those who know that Sucher was a high school basketball standout at St. Paul’s Episcopal in Mobile, Ala., and were he “a foot taller,� golf might not have been his calling. But at 6-foot, 210 pounds, Sucher faded from hoops and settled into this competitive PGA TOUR landscape. Despite all the missed cuts and surgeries and tough times, Sucher can smile, and so can Courtney, who has walked 36 holes in wet, muddy conditions to watch her husband make 12 birdies against one lone bogey. Months ago he wasn’t sure he’d play again on the PGA TOUR and seven days ago he wasn’t sure he had a spot in this field, yet here he is, No. 505 in the world, setting the pace that those in the top 10, and everyone else, are trying to keep pace with. The beauty of sports, so unscripted and unexplainable, eh? “Absolutely. It feels great,� said Sucher, whose best finish in 35 PGA TOUR tournaments across three seasons is a tie for 20th at the 2015 Barracuda Championship. “A lot of work to be done, but right now it’s feeling great.�

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We’re only two weeks into 2017-18 but we may already have our runaway candidate for the season’s most shocking group decision. How Justin Thomas isn’t populating 100 percent of the rosters submitted for the CIMB Classic defies explanation. Sure, there’s the contrarian angle, but then there’s just flat-out foolishness. With no cut, only 78 golfers in the field, the imbalanced benefit of bonus points due to the absence of ShotLink and virtually zero chance of needing more than three starts in Segment 1 for any golfer, there isn’t a reason to at least stash the two-time defending champion on your bench. Elsewhere, you’ve tiptoed into scuffling Thomas Pieters, who slots 16th overall at 11.5 percent. That aversion is unlikely to last long, but he’ll be more valuable when all shots are measured, anyway. Remember, only the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open remains as a full-fantasy scoring event in Segment 1. PGA TOUR Fantasy Golf presented by SERVPRO NOTE: Rob’s Rating refers to where our Fantasy Insider slotted a golfer in his Power Rankings (“PR”) and other preview material. Golfers in the Power Rankings and outside the top 10 in most owned Other notables PGA TOUR Fantasy One & Done presented by SERVPRO It would have been understandable if Justin Thomas didn’t pace the field of 78, but why mess with a sure thing? In fact, as loyal readers of this space have come to learn, chalk almost always leads ownership percentages regardless of common sense or strategic influence. Saying nothing of JT at the CIMB Classic (because he’s my selection), I’ve come to accept the phenomenon as circumstantial piece of evidence that not all gamers play in every event. Naturally, when you’re a sometimer, the most notable and potent options will get the love. However, take note of that devotion to Anirban Lahiri in second with 9.4 percent! That speaks to the crafty gamers who know that they’re guaranteed FedExCup points at TPC Kuala Lumpur where Lahiri placed T3 last year. He also finished T9 in his last individual competition (BMW Championship) and you’re not going to miss him in this format. Bravo.

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